Expensive public housing is a pain in the ass indeed.The housing problem was made much worse by the incoming hot money from the foreign printing presses. Ours are not so bad, China, Australia and Hong Kong are over heating to the point of craziness. The common people are not talking about buying properties but renting them instead. This is inflation playing itself out plus property speculation.
So why do prices go up, and have to go up?This one you have to go back to the basics of Keynesian economy policy implementation. You need a slight inflation to keep the game of fiat currency going. This is a game we all play. Due to the effects of inflation, the price of everything goes up.
The game is over when prices actually goes down, which is a situation that Japan has been facing for the last few decades. Let's use the scenario that prices actually falls for new flat. What will happen?
Older flats losses value as a new flat is cheaper, effectively wipe out billions in value meant for retirement for ALL home owners.
People will perceive that buying a flat is a negative asset, it depreciates over time and losses value. So the only way is NOT to buy a flat but to rent housing instead.
This also creates a downward spiral momentum on public housing prices. Why do current home owners want to hold on to their loss making flats when they should go and buy a cheaper and newer flat? This will cause the depreciation in value to accelerate, creating the first made in Singapore housing crisis.
The problem is more like the prices are increasing too rapidly, and COV is something that needs to be tame. If there is a party that saw this, and have a practical solution to it, I am all ears. Unfortunately, as I kept humming, the opposition didn't understand economics, have a poor grip on reality and in turn have terrible short sighted populist policies. The impact is very serious. People are going to lose jobs, life savings, and worse yet, in the current global economy climate, this is a mistake we cannot afford to make.
Personal background I am a IT engineer, whose field is flooded with foreigners. We are out numbered 1 : 20 or maybe more.
In my department, the number of PRs, new citizens and EP holders completely out numbered born-in-Singapore Singaporeans. Does that mean I should go around bashing foreigners for jacking up prices in resale flat, taking up space in MRT or stealing your potential life partner? No. As I said, these are the new Citizen in the making, well over the majority settled down here. Singapore is a country made up of foreigners workers and immigrant.
I got a colleague who was also cursing and swearing at PAP all the time for years. Then this week, he announced happily that he is going to marry a PRC, going to sell his flat to a new citizen making a handsome sum in the progress. I was like WTF, people changed over night.
Again to talk about opposition policies, many of them are not new, and have known undesirable effects too. There is little information on how to handle the various issues that are bound to happen if the policies are implemented. This is akin to sell first worry later, very irresponsible. It's like the iPhone 4 with the antenna problem.
FTMore foreigners keeps the game running. Someone else's loss is another's gain. Look the other way, does losing 1.5 million FT solve the problem? It will only create a new set of problem, probably more undesirable in the long run.
A loss in advantage over our neighbours will send us downwards relatively. Once pass the tipping point where the upward momentum in price, deflation and stagflation will kick in and that is something we cannot afford. The effects comes in only after many years.
Take a look at my favorite beating dummy, the US, the land of the free. Not that we will be like them if we vote for the opposition but this is what bad policies can do. After 911, they had tighten immigration policies, kept the same policies that the opposition are selling and where are they now?
http://www.shadowstats.com/ 1) A housing bubble that had not completely deflated since 2008
2) Real unemployment over 20%
3) Real inflation well over 6%
4) Obama care remained unfunded, a promise that cannot be kept
5) FT brain drain crippled their knowledge industries
6) Heavy taxes drove out their rich and large companies
7) SME were wiped out
8) Food stamps use had grew to ...
http://www.dailyjobsupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/Food-Stamps-Nations.jpg 9) US dollar had plunged to toilet paper status.
http://www.fxstreet.com/rates-charts/usdollar-index/ After reading wider and gaining a big picture view, I had arrived to the conclusion that we should always vote for the best policies for our country. There is no way to teach economics or fiscal responsibility over a short time. I didn't like to take things at face value, I do my own research.
In time, you will understand drawing 60 billion for the reasons raised by SDP is unsustainable and likely to be wasted.
PAP will make a bunch of very bad salesmen complete with equally bad PR skills despite their merits. They are not selling their achievements, current projects or their future plans.
Turn the question around and ask the opposition, not the achievement or projects but just the future plans. I find that their populist policies could not met my expectations.
I don't see a future with them at their current state. I am not pro-PAP but the opposition need to have more substance over form. It is very easy to attack one and the burden of proving innocence lies with the victim. Also everyone can complain with 20/20 hindsight.
Did the opposition demonstrate an understanding of global challenges and how we should tackle them? Or go back in history and understand how we had arrived with the current policies? Or study the impact of the very policies that they are selling?
Out on the streets and internet, PAP looks like a piece of crap, as painted by the opposition. Somehow, I didn't see people starving, loses a job, got no place to stay, flats collapsing, stop buying their next car, go for the Xth holiday for the year, get a new pet, going for fine dining, buy a new designer bag, drop out of school because school fees are too high and so on and so forth.
